Preventing undesirable casts

[Rookierookie]

How to prevent the two following situations?

1. Caelum Eagle Kings casting Ironskin. Especially if scripted as Shockwave thugs.

2. 3N Mages casting Berserkers (1 gem under CBM) on self/another mage instead of other scripted Gem-costing boosts

[13lackGu4rd]

Originally Posted by Rookierookie

How to prevent the two following situations?

1. Caelum Eagle Kings casting Ironskin. Especially if scripted as Shockwave thugs.

2. 3N Mages casting Berserkers (1 gem under CBM) on self/another mage instead of other scripted Gem-costing boosts

1. get another level in alteration to gain access to invulnerability

2. if you want to buff your army than position the N mage near the army, not the other mages. if you want to buff your mages than just make sure to select the correct buff and position your mage so he'll have valid targets to cast it on. generally the AI only goes off script either if there are no valid targets to cast the scripted spell on or the spell(mostly offensive evocations) will be "wasted" as in, not enough enemy units or too many friendlies in the way.

[Rookierookie]

Eagle Kings will need boots to cast Invul. I did script stoneskin, but that doesn't prevent them from casting ironskin after that.

I was pretty sure that the 3N Mage had enough targets for the buff in question. I could be wrong though.

[Squirrelloid]

1) Don't use (cast), use (hold) to make them wait. Don't let them cast spells you didn't script outside of close combat. (An EK will follow your buff routine, and will prefer shockwave to buffs if told to cast 'spells' once in close combat. Since its flying, (bless)(air shield)(hold)(hold)(attack)(spells) will cast the 2 spells, hold 2 turns, get into melee combat, and start dropping shockwave). Basically, if you're giving your EK an opportunity to cast ironskin, you're doing something wrong.

2)I've never had a problem with nature mages casting berzerkers when they were scripted to do other things, so I'm not sure what caused it.

[Gandalf Parker]

Most of the "doesnt follow my script" complaints seem to be about Alteration spells. Depending on the nation, and my plans, I might put off researching that magic for awhile. Especially in early game when I want my mages locked into the more aggressive Evocation spells.

[thejeff]

Well, you'll want Alteration fairly early. Mistform and Mirror Image are both very nice for Eagle Kings.
That said I haven't had the problem with Ironskin using the (bless)(air shield)(hold)(hold)(attack)(spells) script.
Sometimes they'd cast it near the end of the battle when there were no close targets, but that isn't really a problem.

Berserkers is much less of a problem in CBM than it was in vanilla when it didn't cost gems. The question there is why the mage didn't cast the scripted spell. A mage off-script with gems will certainly do the wrong thing.

[don_Pablo]

I had that problem with EK.
I just added 'resist lightning' to his script.
(bless)(a/shield)(mistform)(resist lightning)(attack)(spells).

[thejeff]

Does he cast it? Usually mages won't cast resistance spell if they're already 100% resistant.

[Calahan]

I find Eagle Kings to be one of the most retarded of all units.

Basically they love Iron Skin, but won't ever cast Resist Lightening, even if scripted in the order "Iron Skin" + "Resist Lightening". Most likely the 25% Shock Res value they have left after casting Iron Skin puts them off boosting it to 125%.

Annoying? Yes, but there are many examples like this in the game, so just learn to roll with it.